Dress and fashion can be used not only to symbolize culture,
religion or spirituality, but it can also be used as a tool of oppression as
well as liberation. For many people, dress is an expression of personality,
faith, choice and identity. It can also deeply affect one's spiritual self and
help connect the wearer to her inward self. Marco Pallis describes the
significance and meaningfulness between dress and spiritual identity and how,
according to him, clothing ranks among the most important but least analyzed
sites of colonization. He is particularly interested analyzing clothing as a
component of spirituality. He writes that ?of the many things a person puts to
use in the pursuit of her earthly vocation there are none, perhaps, which show
more content?
This is one of the starting points of colonization, which
aims at usurping the cultural/spiritual
self identification of indigenous population.
From a psychoanalytic framework, Fanon envisages any sort of cultural
usurpation ? traditional clothing, racial profiling, etc. as corollary to the
creation of a new meaning/identity for the colonized person. As a
medium between the self and the body, traditional garments represented yet
another fertile site of colonization and dominance; precisely because they
confer meaning upon the indigenous cultural, religious, spiritual
identity.
Now, we can see how these realities were translated within a
colonial context. French colonialism in Africa created an environment for
cultural exchange under conditions of social and economic inequality, dependent
upon France's clear distinction between the motherland and the colony. The
interactions between France and its African colonies were mainly distinguish
Some have it in accordance to the latest trending vogue in
the market, after scrutinizing for hours the innumerable fashion magazines,
while others set out to be the visionaries in the field, creating and endorsing
their own ?label?. And still, there is yet another category who adorns it
attributing to the mood swings they are going through, Clothes have evolved
from being a mere covering to the body to the one that complements an
individual's whole personality, thus defining whether the person is outgoing or
cultural, boisterous or taciturn, modest or clumsy.
Available in indefinite sizes, small, large and extra-large,
with fabrics ranging from khadi to nylon and cotton to silk, Clothes are one of
the Indispensable necessities for the survival of humankind, which defies any
classification pertaining to richness or age. Right from the Stone Age, clothes
have served their basic primary purpose of providing protection from the
negative effects of the environs, namely heat and cold, dust and rain, although
the pre- historic apparels were an animal's skin and the present age attires
are of animal's print. Varieties of clothes are inexhaustible, from cotton,
light- colored clothes in summers to the woolen, furry jackets and sweaters in
the winters, casual tees for an outing with a friend and bejeweled ethnics for
that same friend's wedding. Even different regions have their own indigenous
clothing, the extremity of which is evident in India itself, ghaghra- choli in
Gujarat and saree in Maharashtra, lungi in Tamil Nadu and kurta- pajama in
Bihar.
Life without air is definitely impossible but life without
clothes is surely indignant, if not unreasonable, it is because of this reason
that donating clothes is no less than providing a hungry food, or giving the
homeless shelter. Clothes have an eminent role to play and the proof can be
statistically claimed with the burgeoning number of customers attracted by a
small garments shop even in a remote locality.
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